Rates amendments for residential properties

[Dave S]

Does anyone have information on the new "Rates amendments for residential properties"? I got a shocker in the post yesterday from City of JHB. My property evaluation is set to increase from R160 000 to R750 000 (not a big house and certainly not in a perfect neighbourhood). How's this going to affect my finances?

BTW what's the scream about "The Formula!" used to calculate the new rates? Where can I lodge complaints?

[Dave A]

My property evaluation is set to increase from R160 000 to R750 000 (not a big house and certainly not in a perfect neighbourhood). How's this going to affect my finances?

That depends on the rate applied. On that re-evaluation you might well be OK.

JHB has changed the value base used to calculate your rates. It used to be on land only and excluded improvements such as buildings, swimming pool and the like. Now it's supposed to be based on market value - which means the base value used to calculate the rates should have increased substantially for everyone.

However, the municipality should be aiming to collect a similar amount of total money from rates as they did under the old system. So the % applied to the rateable value should have gone down.

What you need to look at is the bottom line - just how much will you be paying now as opposed to what you were paying before.

Some will be paying more under the new system and some may be paying less than before. The squeal seems to be because in some instances the change in the amount that must be paid is huge.

It'll be interesting to hear how your bottom line has been affected given those figures.

[Dave S]

When I visited the JHB.org website, as best I can figure from the mumbo-jumbo is that the rate is .1273 cents in the rand multiplied by the evaluation amount and divided by 12 to get a monthly figure. I.E. R750 000 x .001273 = 945.75 / 12 = R79.56 per month. This is less than half the current rate I am paying, so where's the error in my calculation?

Surely if my evaluation has shot up by a factor of about 4.8, then my rates would increase by the same factor which would mean that my new rate would be somewhere around R1200 per month. Unfortunately, I don't think I would be able to absorb this amount.

[Dave A]

Smile and be happy - You could be one of the winners.